Planning officials pass on feedlot request decision

August 20, 2008

The decision whether to rezone land for a proposed 400-head cattle blood processing facility was continued without discussion at Tuesday's city/county planning commission meeting. The planning commission was asked to consider a request to rezone three lots northwest of the intersection of U.S. Highway 281 and 136th Street. The request is to rezone lot No. 1 from agricultural to mini-agricultural; lot No. 2 from unrestricted industrial and agricultural to unrestricted industrial; and lot No. 3 from unrestricted industrial to agricultural. The petitioner is listed as Norg Sanderson. A separate plat for the land was approved unanimously. Last week the Aberdeen Board of Zoning Adjustment continued a decision of whether to allow a feedlot on the land. That request came from Beef Tech LLC. Sanderson's name was also listed as an applicant. A feedlot required a special exception from the board because it is within the three mile radius of the city. A separate request for a variance increasing the allowed number of cattle from 200 to 400 was also continued. The board continued that request in hopes that Sanderson would attend the next meeting. Contractor Lonnie Anderson, who attended last week's meeting as a representative of the feedlot, said the purpose of Beef Tech's feedlot is to maintain the same animals for many years, not to fatten the animals for slaughter and ship them out, Anderson said. Beef Tech feedlot owners would draw blood from the animals on a biweekly basis to be used for medical-type research, he said. Reporter Jackie Burke Grumish; 622-2303 or 1-800-925-4100 ext. 303; jburke@aberdeennews.com